The Dragon Revenant

by Katharine Kerr

“You’re untied!”

  “Of course I am. Haven’t you ever seen those tricks where the show master ties someone up and shoves them into a bag or chest, only to have them pop out again a few minutes later and wave to the crowd?”

  Both her captors laughed, but it was a grim enough kind of chuckle.

  “That’s one on us, Gwin,” said the Bardekian.

  “I’ll admit it. We’ll have to keep a good watch on our clever little traveling player from now on.” He hefted the saddlebag. “Now, I’ve got paper and ink in here. You’re going to write a note, exactly as I tell you, and then we’ll give you some food and water. If you don’t write, you get nothing.”

  “Then I’ll be dying of thirst, soon enough. I don’t know how to read and write. I’m from Deverry, remember.”

  Gwin swore in some language that she couldn’t understand.

  “She’s telling the truth, most likely. I should have thought of that.” He turned back to Jill. “Can Rhodry read?”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play stupid with me.” His voice was very quiet and soft, and it sent a ripple of fear down her back. “It isn’t wise, little girl. Do you know who I am?”

  “A Hawk of the Brotherhood, obviously.” It took all her will to keep her voice steady. “And yes, I know what you do to your prisoners.”

  He smiled, just briefly, a gesture designed to frighten her, no doubt, but she made herself look him full in the face and smile in return, caught his gaze and held it, determined to stare him down and gain a small victory—the only kind, no doubt, that she’d have. For a moment he stared back, his mouth twisting in mockery. All at once, his face seemed to soften, to blur, and his eyes to change color, the black shimmering, then turning a cold hard blue like a winter sea. It seemed to her that she stood in some other room—she could almost see firelight behind him, could almost remember his real name, could almost remember why she envied him over something more important than her life itself.

  “Bards aren’t allowed to read and write,” she said. “You know that.”

  With a wrench and a toss of his head he looked away, and he was the one shaking now, not her, his face an ashy sort of gray, his eyes—black again—darting this way and that as the Bardekian with the sword stepped forward.

  “Gwin, what’s wrong?”

  “Naught.” Gwin tossed his head again, swallowed heavily, and made his voice perfectly steady—but he was still a little pale. “Our hostage is a lot more valuable than we thought, that’s all.” So smoothly she suspected nothing, he turned, then slapped her across the face, so hard that she fell back across the wall. “What do you mean, Rhodry’s a bard?”

  “That’s not what I said at all.” She found herself thinking of her father’s slaps, when he was in one of his tempers, and forced herself to stay as unmoving now as she had then. Only one eye betrayed her by starting to swell and tear. “As for the meaning of what I did say, you’re as capable of puzzling it out as I am—neither more nor less.”

  Gwin raised his hand, then hesitated. She could see that he was frightened, and she knew in some obscure way, deep in her soul, that she had him on the run and could keep him that way if only she chose the right words. She found herself thinking of him as a man near to breaking. Around her materialized Wildfolk in a restless, hostile swarm, glaring at her captors, shaking tiny fists, opening their mouths in soundless snarls to reveal long pointed teeth. When Gwin barked out a string of words in some language that she didn’t understand, some of the Wildfolk disappeared, more cowered against her in fear, but some growled boldly back at him.

  “They won’t obey you,” Jill said. “But I’ll send them away rather than let you hurt them.” She raised her hand and did just that, scattering them more with her thought than with her gesture. Her gray gnome stayed to the last, snarling like a dog, until she chased him away with the stamp of a foot.

  “Who are you?” It was the Bardekian, whispering under his breath, his dark face gray.

  “You know.”

  She said it as a portentous bluff and nothing more, but Gwin stepped back sharply. Not in fear—she realized suddenly that his mouth was working in honest effort, as if he were desperately trying to remember, that he seemed, in fact, close to tears, as if she had piled shock onto some private grief until he could stand the weight no more. The Bardekian kept looking back and forth between them, his eyes narrow with confusion.

  “Gwin, what is all this?” he snarled, and ever so slightly he raised his sword, ever so slightly his shoulders tensed. “I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve told us the truth, or …”

  The Bardekian had his sword in hand, and Gwin’s was in his scabbard, but all at once Gwin moved, steel flashed, there was a grunt and a spurt of blood. The Bardekian swayed, took one step, dropped his sword, and fell face-forward onto the floor. A long dagger smeared with blood in his hand, Gwin spun on his heel and caught Jill’s glance, swung up the dagger, and glared at her over the tip. She went stone-still and stared back into madness.

  “I could kill you without half-trying,” he whispered.

  “You could—easier than that.”

  He smiled and lowered the dagger, but only by a few inches. She felt a trickle of cold sweat run between her breasts and another down her back. Behind him materialized her gray gnome and two purple-and-green fellows, all three of them grinning and dancing as they pointed at the world outside the window. With a wrench of will she looked only at Gwin’s face, but this time he refused to let her look into his eyes.

  “You’re beautiful, for a witch,” he remarked, and his voice was so casual it was frightening. “But I know a trick or two against female magicks. You won’t ensorcel me again.”

  She heard a sound, a scuff of a boot, maybe, that came from beyond the window, and spoke hurriedly to cover it.

  “I never ensorceled you at all. I don’t even know what happened when I looked into your eyes, truly I don’t.”

  “Oh, now you’re going to whine and weasel, are you, when I’ve got the better of you?” His grin was terrifying, as cold and rigid as the smirk on a corpse, but he did lower the dagger, holding it about waist-high in a relaxed hand.

  “I’m telling you the simple truth. All I know is that I recognized you somehow, from somewhere.”

  He threw up his head like a startled horse, the mad grin gone.

  “I felt that way about Rhodry, when first I saw him. Do you know where that was? In a stinking tavern in the Bilge in Cerrmor, where Merryc and Baruma had him trapped, like a stag at bay with half a dozen rowdies round him, and he was laughing. One swordsman against six, and he laughed like it was the best jest in the world.” His voice had turned very soft. “It wrung my heart, somehow. Just like you said—somehow, and from somewhere.” Then he shook himself, the dagger flashing up, and grinned again as he took two steps toward her. “Don’t you think I hear them coming, too, girl? Do you think I’m stupid? You’re going to be my shield.”

  With his free hand he made a grab toward her shoulder, intending, no doubt, to clutch her in front of him with the knife at her throat. Jill ducked, dropped, twisted as she came up and kicked him full in the stomach. As she came down, she grabbed his free wrist, dropped again, and flung him backwards over her shoulder to slam hard against the wall. His dagger went spinning out of reach. She pulled her own from her shirt, stripped it of the sheath, and dropped her weight to a fighting crouch as he scrambled up, out of breath but not in the least dazed from blows that would have left an ordinary man numb and gasping on the floor. To cover her sudden fear Jill laughed at him.

  “I’m not a witch, Gwin, but I could have been an assassin like you.”

  He laughed in return, a berserker’s chuckle under his breath that reminded her hideously of Rhodry.

  “So you could have, and maybe I deserve to die for underestimating you like that. Let’s see what happens between you and me, shall we, girl?”

  When he settled into a stance of his own, knees wide, his weight perfectly
balanced between them, she realized that he was a good fighter—and much more dangerous than she was, whether she had a dagger or not. From the way he smiled as he circled round, he knew it, too. They heard Rhodry, then, yelling her name, and footsteps pounding toward them, but neither said a word, merely circled, Gwin leading, nearer and nearer to his fallen knife. She felt her heart thudding as she waited for the one split-second she would have, when he stooped to grab it. Closer now, closer, and Rhodry screaming like a berserker outside—Gwin tripped, cursed, and went down, screeching foul oaths, under a heaving pile of Wildfolk. With a howl of triumph Jill sprang, straddling him from behind while Wildfolk scattered and grabbing his hair in one hand to wrench his head back. It was her dagger at his throat, now.

  “Jill, don’t!” Rhodry burst into the room with the door banging behind him, a blooded sword in his hand. “Don’t kill him!”

  Only then did she realize that she’d been about to do just that. She froze, staring at Rhodry. He wasn’t begging—he was ordering her, his eyes snapping as he took another step into the room. She let Gwin go and stood, dodging free of him before he could rise.

  “As Your Grace commands, of course.”

  At the snarl in her voice Rhodry turned bewildered.

  “Ah by the hells, my love, I don’t mean to order you about. It’s just that you were half-berserk, and I wanted to make sure you understood me. Words don’t mean a blasted lot to berserkers, you know.”

  “Well, true enough.”

  Gwin was still lying sprawled on the floor. Slowly he rolled over and sat up with a cautious eye for the Wildfolk who stood about in mobs or hovered above him in the air.

  “Why not let her kill me, Rhodry?” This time he spoke in Deverrian.

  “Because I owe you somewhat, enough so that if you have to die, I’ll do it myself for the honor of the thing.”

  Gwin stared, his mouth a little open, his eyes filling with tears, and that grief was a gruesome thing to see on a man as cold and hard as he was.

  “I can understand that kind of honor,” he whispered. “My thanks, Your Grace. So, that lofty a title belongs to you, does it? Who are you? I never did know.”

  “Rhodry Maelwaedd, Gwerbret Aberwyn.” It was Salamander, crowding into the room with a wince for the huddled corpse of the Bardekian. “Do you know what it means to raise a hand against a gwerbret?”

  “By the dung of the Clawed Ones! I do at that, by every god-cursed demon in the three hells! That’s just like the filth-sucking Old One, isn’t it, to hire us to risk our rotten lives and never even tell us just how great the blasted risk is! The pig-bugger! I’ll …” Gwin stopped, his mouth twisting in his mocking grin. “Well, I’ll be doing naught that can harm him, truly, unless I come back as a haunt or suchlike.” He got to his feet, slowly, keeping his hands in the air where they could all see them. “If ever I did you any favor, Your Grace, when you were in that stinking ship, I’ll beg you to kill me quickly and easily. That’s all.”

  He could force himself to smile, force himself to stand proudly, his head tossed back like a true warrior, but there was nothing he could do, apparently, that would make him stop shaking all over. It wasn’t fear, Jill realized; his eyes were too dead already for him to be simply afraid to die. When Rhodry laid his sword blade alongside Gwin’s throat in such a way as one flick of his wrist would kill the Hawk in an instant, Gwin merely looked him straight in the face—yet he went on shaking. Although Jill had been ready to kill him herself only a few moments before, she found herself stepping forward.

  “Tell me somewhat,” she said. “Would you rather live or die?”

  “I don’t know.” Gwin smiled again, such a normal smile, filled with good cheer, that it chilled her heart. “I truly don’t, and here I’ve been asking myself that question for days now. I’d rather die than live as a Hawk—I suppose. I’m not truly certain of that, either.”

  “It’s time you made up your mind. If you stay a Hawk, you’ll die, sure enough. Come over to us, and give us your word on it, and I’ll beg the gwerbret for your life.”

  Gwin began shaking so hard that the sword blade nicked his skin. Rhodry moved the blade a little, then glanced her way with eyes that seemed to understand her better than she did herself. Salamander said nothing, but she could tell from the tense way he stood, half a warrior at the moment, that something of great importance was at stake. A man’s soul if naught else, she thought to herself, and at the thought she went cold. All at once Rhodry lowered the blade, glanced at the old blood on it, and stooped to wipe it clean on the dead man’s tunic. When he sheathed it, the sound was like a slap in the breathless room. As he stood there in his muddy clothes, unshaven and damp, with half his memories gone and his life still broken, she saw him suddenly as the gwerbret, the ruler he would be—no, that he was now, despite everything. She knew then for a surety that Rhys was dead, and that Wyrd had picked up the dice to roll a turn.

  “I’m not killing you, Gwin,” Rhodry said. “You can come with us as a prisoner, or as my man. Which is it?”

  Gwin gave one last convulsive shudder.

  “Rhodry,” was all he could say, because he was weeping.

  Salamander grabbed Jill’s arm, but he had no need to drag her away; she was in as much hurry to get out of the chamber and leave them alone as he was. A few steps led them up to a muddy, bare farmyard between a long whitewashed house and a square building that might have been a barn or a granary. Lying near a well was another dead man, and tethered out in a meadow were some twenty-five horses—theirs among them. Overhead the sky was a low, cold gray, swirling with wind.

  “That was a fine thing you did in there,” Salamander said.

  “Was it? If he’s lying, I’ve endangered us all.”

  “Lying? Gwin? Not by a pile of horseshit, he isn’t. Mayhap you’ve never seen a man broken down to naught before—I have. Oh, he’ll follow our Rhodry to the death, he will, and see him as a god, too, after this.”

  The wind picked up, and Jill shivered, looking around her for the first time with eyes that truly saw.

  “Where are we?”

  “A farm in the hills. In the flood-time the tenants who hold isolated little places like this take shelter with their landlords in the big villas. When Gwin and his late and unlamented friends needed a place to hide, all they had to do was ride in and make themselves at home.”

  Jill nodded, barely hearing him. She was remembering Gwin’s eyes, turning from black to blue, and the firelight that seemed to have burned behind him in her vision. Small wet fingers touched her cheek: rain, the first fat drops of a storm.

  “Gods!” Salamander snarled. “Run for it!”

  They dashed across the yard and ducked into the open door of the farmhouse just ahead of a drench of water.

  “When it rains in this benighted country, it rains!” Salamander said, tossing his head and scattering the drops from his hair. “This is going to make traveling most unpleasant indeed, my wee waterfowl. We might just stay here for a day or two. Gwin and his freshly felled fellows seem to have broken the door right off its hinges, so we’ll have to leave the good farmer some coins for damages anyway. We might as well leave him a few more for rent.”

  “I think we should get on the road and use the rain to our advantage.”

  “Advantage? What advantage? Maybe you see advantages in riding wet, sodden, damp, saturated, and soaking, to say nothing of cold, chilly, freezing, and frigid, or—”

  “What about riding invisible?”

  Salamander stopped his lexiconic recital in mid-word and blinked at her.

  “I don’t mean invisible to ordinary sight. You’re the one who’s always talking about the astral vibrations of water interfering when someone wants to scry.” Jill waved her hand at the down-driving rain outside. “Well, what about all this?”

  “It might work, it might indeed. At the least, they’ll have a wretched lot of trouble getting clear images of trivial little details like, oh for instance, where we are
and who’s with us.”

  “Exactly what I thought. It’s going to be hard on the horses, but we don’t have to move fast. If we’re off this road and into the mountains before they scry us out, they won’t really know where we are. Remember when you were trying to find Rhodry, and all the grasslands looked the same?”

  “The mountains are no more distinguished, truly—trees and boulders, boulders and trees, and here and there a charming little ravine, replete with snakes, which are rather tasty this time of year, come to think of it, and may be most welcome.”

  “What? Eat snakes?”

  “What? Ride wet?” He grinned at her. “We are all in for an unlovely time, my little linnet, but I promise you that it’ll be far more pleasant than—indeed, it’ll be like living in the wondrous Halls of Bel in the Otherlands themselves compared to lying on a torture table in one of the hidden chambers of the Hawks.”

  “Odd—I was having thoughts that were somewhat the same. How far to Pastedion from here?”

  “Um, well, if we went directly there, some four nights, maybe five, since we’ll be traveling in this slop. If we keep to the mountains, it’ll be safer but longer.”

  “Let’s stick with safer, shall we?”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Very well, then, say an eightnight, depending on the weather and all. Let’s go fetch Rhodry and Gwin. The sooner we put your plan in action, the better.”

  That very night Baruma tried to scry them out. For the past few weeks he’d been posing as a legal messenger so that he could travel along the coast with a proper caravan. Just as the winter rains began, they reached Indila, not far from his destination, and Baruma stayed there in a comfortable inn for two days while he debated whether or not it was time to join the Old One. Although he was afraid to go, he was equally afraid to stay away. What if the Old One came to suspect his double-dealings? He knew perfectly well that those who went to the master’s villa were sometimes never seen again. Baruma suspected that the Old One had done nothing so rudimentary as merely killing the poor wretches. On the other hand, if he shirked spying for the Hawkmaster, his position would be even more dangerous. In an attempt to gather information that would help him decide, Baruma brought out the silver bowl and the black ink, unwrapped Rhodry’s silver dagger to use as a focus, and sat himself down at a low table to scry. If the Hawkmaster had already taken the barbarian prisoner, he might well be too distracted to worry about Baruma’s affairs.